UK Economist Rails Against Record Industry

"The copyright lobby has acquired its power because it has persuaded creative people that it defends their interests. I remember upbraiding a colleague who was using pirated software: I argued that we had a common concern to protect intellectual property. But I was mistaken. The law protects computer programs but not the ideas of a think-tank. That is why software businesses are well endowed and think-tanks are not, except for those that lend support to arguments such as those of Mr Munns.

"The claim by the music business to maintain control of every subsequent exploitation of its product has no more moral basis than the claim of a think-tank to control every subsequent expression or development of its ideas. Or the right of Trinity College, Cambridge, to approve every application of calculus, the invention of Isaac Newton, its late employee. Far from stimulating creative effort, such restrictions would paralyse it. The unreasonable nature of the assertion and its unenforceability reinforce each other. This pretty much describes the music industry’s situation. So it will be the first industry to be genuinely transformed by the internet."